2017: The Year in Resurgent Reality TV

The era of Peak TV has been a boom time for our TV options. Never before have we had so many options for great TV series. Across the breadth of television, we have countless options for legitimately great TV dramas and comedies. More than we even have time to keep up with. So it’s kind of fascinating that this boom time for all of television hasn’t translated into a boom for reality television. Particularly competitive reality television.

Now, this isn’t to say that reality TV isn’t everywhere. It’s still much cheaper to produce, and we’re still getting waves and waves of new reality programming on networks like VH1, Bravo, HGTV, Food Network, all up and down the cable dial. But the streaming revolution has yet to deliver addictive competitive reality the way that the boom of the early 2000s did. Documentaries and true crime? That’s where non-fiction programming is at right now. But what was the last competitive reality program to break out big on American TV? RuPaul’s Drag Race, currently in between its 9th and 10th seasons, was probably the most recent. On network, the most recent reality competition hit has been The Voice, which is 13 seasons old.

Here’s what’s cool about the flip side of that coin, though: the old war horses still have some juice in them. Somehow, The Bachelor franchise is as popular as it’s ever been; Big Brother is popular enough in the summertime that we’re getting a Celebrity version in early 2018; Survivor is in its 35th (!!) season, still going strong. We may not be in the golden age of new reality TV competitions, but we certainly seem to be enjoying the golden years of our stalwart reality institutions.

One of the great, underrated stories of television in 2017 was the resurgence of some of these venerable reality shows. Shows that we’d maybe drifted away from or at the very least begun to take for granted rebounded with can’t-miss seasons that reminded us why we fell in love with these shows in the first place. And that’s not even getting into two shows that hadn’t even been slumping that still served up some of their most memorable moments to date:

• Survivor, in its 34th season, managed to deliver two of its most insane and riveting hours in their long history, for completely opposite reasons. The season, dubbed “Game Changers,” was a dubious prospect given its cast of iffy all-stars, but in March, that cast came together for a wildly electric tribal council where strategies were changing minute by minute and on-the-fly huddled conferences ended up swerving the outcome to a jaw-dropping reveal that left super-fans of Survivor game strategy shook but ecstatic. On a very different emotional frequency, the episode in April where contestant Jeff Varner outed transgender contestant Zeke Smith provided the show with a controversial yet incredibly timely moment that in this writer’s opinion the show handled with admirable forthrightness as they attempted to give Smith the chance to reclaim his own narrative.
• RuPaul’s Drag Race moved from LOGO to VH1 and grabbed that bigger spotlight with both hands, starting with a Lady Gaga appearance in the season premiere. And while super-fans argued all season about whether the season 9 queens were bringing enough backstage drama to the proceedings, the finale episode, featuring a lip-sync tournament for the crown, delivered one of the biggest gags in series history, with Sasha Velour besting perhaps the greatest finale lineup in show history with a performance of “So Emotional” that blew the roof off of the live audience and viewers at home alike.

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Still, there were three shows that rebounded hard in 2017, coming back from the brink of obsolescence — or at least viewer apathy — to deliver some of their strongest seasons yet. Here’s to them, in alphabetical order:

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

In its ninth season, the Atlanta housewives became appointment television and claimed the title of Hottest Show on Bravo, thanks to a long-simmering feud that bubbled over with shocking accusations and revelations. The animosity between former best pals Kandi Burruss and Phaedra Parks had been steadily approaching a boil for years, but when Phaedra’s new bestie Porsha Williams accused Kandi and her husband of intending to drug and rape her, shit got crazy. Kandi had always been a fan fave but was mostly used to keeping above the fray and working on her business, content to let the other women act crazy. But when Porsha’s crazy began to threaten those very businesses, Kandi defended herself with a fierceness. It was a soap opera-worthy melodrama that nonetheless still managed to zero in on some deeply funny asides:

But that wasn’t even the best of it. No Housewives reunion was ever more anticipated than the FOUR-part Atlanta reunion, where Porsha’s accusations were revealed to have been planted and masterminded by none other that Phaedra herself. Only the best TV soaps have ever been this addictive nor able to deliver such bombshells. Atlanta reached another level this year.

So You Think You Can Dance

In its 14th year, So You Think You Can Dance was definitely feeling long in the tooth. Having spent several years on the brink of cancellation and cycling through gimmicks (hip-hop versus contemporary! juniors!) and new judges (Paula Abdul! Jason Derulo!), the dance competition went back to the basics for what felt like a swan song, focusing on its grown dancers and the cadre of all-stars there to mentor them. The all-stars were a draw, but the season was brought to vibrant life by featuring one of the strongest casts of new dancers in quite a while. And after a few seasons of frankly lackluster choreography, the pros brought it hard in season 14, with routines like this group routine that brought audiences to their feet and had us thinking about how far this show had come:

The show felt like it rediscovered some of its gift for narrative in season 14, telling the stories of ballroom dancers testing out unfamiliar styles, shy kids finding their personalities, and young phenoms moving their limbs in ways that would land most of us in the hospital.

In the end, the winner was a highly supportable, hugely likeable dancer, but a case could have been made for any of the top 6 to have won. It’s hard to remember the last time I was so invested in this show that I got legitimately angry at the 5th and 6th place eliminations, but it felt good to be that fired up about So You Think You Can Dance again. But seriously, Justice For Logan!

Top Chef

At some point, if you’d seen one seared scallop, you’d seen them all. Or so we figured, which was why we’d drifted away from Top Chef after one too many seasons of Tom Colichhio pressing his thumb on the scale for another bro winner (no, we’re still not over that New Orleans season). But the half-all-stars, half-newbies season 14 piqued our interest (okay, the return of season 2’s Sam Talbot piqued our interest, and by “piqued,” we mean … okay, moving on), and while the newbies turned out to be largely uninspiring, the returnees were phenomenal. And the end game showdown between wildly likeable and badass chefs Shirley Chung and Brooke Williamson turned into a breathtaking and unexpectedly emotional capper, complete with family moments that tugged at the heartstrings and notes of professional triumph that have been afforded to too few women in the history of this show.

It’s a cliche to say that a season of a show reminded us why we fell in love with it to begin with … but Top Chef season 14 reminded us why we fell in love with this show, big time.

Where to stream So You Think You Can Dance

Where to stream Top Chef

Where to stream The Real Housewives of Atlanta

Where to stream RuPaul's Drag Race

Where to stream Survivor